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Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Playing at the DNC Convention. This is horrible. Government? WE belong to? No. Government is the servant of the people and of God. What about the family as the root of all society? This is socialist propaganda not so pure, but simple.

But guess who said this in 1919? Gramsci. Are you surprised? A society does not exist if not in a State, which is the source and the end of all law and of all duty, which is the guarantee of permanence and of the success of every social activity. The proletarian revolution is such when it gives life to a typically proletarian State, keeper of proletarian law, which develops its essential functions as emanation of proletarian life and power. L'Ordine Nuovo, 7 June 1919;

France 24 has reported the latest effort by the French government to separate religion from the public sphere. The minister of education, Francois Peillon, wants ethics and morality to be taught in the schools from "Republican values." Of course, this is ridiculous, as without a natural law philosophy or an underlying religious philosophy, morals do not have a framework. The government seems to want to impose order onto chaos without addressing the real problem. But, since when are socialists rationale? Of course, these leaders feel like they must do something. Did anything moral come out of the French Revolution>

Convince me.

From the article we can see the dilemma. Part of the problem is that Hollande wants to get rid of all private schools. Yes, I heard him in France when he was campaigning. Really, he said that.

“In France we talk a lot about values like liberté, egalité and fraternité,” Labaquere told FRANCE 24. “But these values can be achieved by a school helping children to grow and develop their personalities and by allowing them to express themselves."

"It shouldn’t be done simply be writing a set of moral codes on the blackboard and forcing pupils to learn them off by heart.”

Philosopher and specialist in secularism, Henri Pena Ruiz is also concerned that teaching secular morality in schools may well undermine the fundamental principal of laïcité and the reasons why France chose to separate its church from the state.

“We can’t just replace Christian instruction with Republican instruction for there is no point just aping religious indoctrination with secularist indoctrination,” Ruiz told Le Journal du Dimanche.

Parent groups have also expressed reservations about schools taking on the task of teaching morality to pupils.

“This should not encroach upon the role of the parents,” warned Valérie Marty of the Federation of State School Parents (PEEP). “Researchers looking into this must clearly define the roles of each side.”

Hollande is behind this. He thinks is totally secular and humanistic terms. In his campaign, he said that.“A good school is one that teaches “dignity, respect, consideration and personal reflection.”

HOW?

Here is the philosophy of secularization as expressed from the viewpoint of the French from the article online.

FRANCE AND THE PRINCIPLE OF LAÏCITÉ

The word laïcité, roughly translated as secularism, has no exact equivalent in English. It refers to a core principle of the French Republic, which had its origins in the French Revolution and was consecrated by a 1905 law separating church and state. The law protects the right to freedom of worship, but rules that religion should play no role in government or public institutions, particularly state schools. The principle of laïcité enjoys broad backing across France’s political spectrum and is passionately defended when the position of religion in French society arises. In 2004 a controversial law was passed banning the wearing of religious symbols, including muslim veils, in schools. This led some to portray France’s reinforement of laïcité simply as an attack on the influence of Islam in the country. Many Muslims in France supported the law however.

Obamacare is anti-woman. And, not just in the reproductive rights area is there a problem. I am a breast-cancer survivor. I survived because I had a mammogram paid for by my private health insurance at the time. I would have never found the cancer myself because of where it was. I was 61. I was working full-time. Thankfully, it was caught, and I am on medication for several years with a 95% chance of no-cancer returning. I am grateful.

However, Obamacare has created a health system where yearly check-ups are not going to be recommended for women over 50. This is outrageous, and only one of the stringent cut-backs for women which we shall see in years to come.

Ageism is an evil. But, Obamacare must make cuts and has a philosophy favouring the young. However, I consider myself youngish. I am middle-aged, not old. I am very capable of work. I am capable of many years of energy and health. Yet, Obamacare stifles my age-group and for a reason.The program can only afford to let us babyboomers die. Sorry, that is the truth. Euthanasia by default.... If POTUS stays in power and Obamacare is not rescinded, the death philosophy of the State will take over many areas which people do not expect. Wake up, America.

In 2010, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a federal advisory panel, made the recommendation that screening mammography for breast cancer should no longer be recommended for women under age 50. Where was the indignation from Ms. Fluke and the Democrats over this decision and how is this any less of an assault on women's health? Under Obamacare, this advisory board will be replaced by an official department; one of the 159 new agencies created by the new healthcare law. This central planning committee will make decisions about women's health behind closed doors and this board is answerable only to the new healthcare czar, the Secretary of Health & Human Services.

Recently, because I was looking up something for someone on another blog, I quoted Venerable Fulton J. Sheen's famous book on the Mass,Calvary and theI am delighted to share with you that it is online.

What follows are a few gems from this book.What is important at this point is that we take the proper mental attitude toward the Mass, and remember this important fact, that the Sacrifice of the Cross is not something which happened nineteen hundred years ago. It is still happening. It is not something past like the signing of the Declaration of Independence; it is an abiding drama on which the curtain has not yet rung down. Let it not be believed that it happened a long time ago, and therefore no more concerns us than anything else in the past. Calvary belongs to all times and to all places.

That is why, when our Blessed Lord ascended the heights of Calvary, He was fittingly stripped of His garments: He would save the world without the trappings of a passing world. His garments belonged to time, for they localized Him, and fixed Him as a dweller in Galilee. Now that He was shorn of them and utterly dispossessed of earthly things, He belonged not to Galilee, not to a Roman province, but to the world. He became the universal poor man of the world, belonging to no one people, but to all men.

"He offered the Victim to be immolated; we offer it as immolated of old. We offer the eternal Victim of the Cross, once made and forever enduring.... The Mass is a sacrifice because it is our oblation of the Victim once immolated, even as the Supper was the oblation of the Victim to be immolated." ibid. p. 239-240.

The Mass is not only a commemoration; it is a living representation of the sacrifice of the cross. "In this Divine Sacrifice which takes place at the Mass is contained and immolated, in an unbloody manner, the same Christ that was offered once for all in blood upon the Cross . . . It is one and the same Victim, one and the same High Priest, who made the offering through the ministry of His priests today, after having offered Himself upon the cross yesterday; only the manner of the oblation is different" (Council of Trent. Sess. 22).

To express further the universality of the Redemption, the cross was erected at the crossroads of civilization, at a central point between the three great cultures of Jerusalem, Rome, and Athens, in whose names He was crucified. The cross was thus placarded before the eyes of men, to arrest the careless, to appeal to the thoughtless, to arouse the worldly. It was the one inescapable fact that the cultures and civilizations of His day could not resist. It is also the one inescapable fact of our day which we cannot resist.

The figures at the Cross were symbols of all who crucify. We were there in our representatives. What we are doing now to the Mystical Christ, they were doing in our names to the historical Christ. If we are envious of the good, we were there in the Scribes and Pharisees. If we are fearful of losing some temporal advantage by embracing Divine Truth and Love, we were there in Pilate. If we trust in material forces and seek to conquer through the world instead of through the spirit, we were there in Herod. And so the story goes on for the typical sins of the world. They all blind us to the fact that He is God. There was therefore a kind of inevitability about the Crucifixion. Men who were free to sin were also free to crucify.

As long as there is sin in the world the Crucifixion is a reality. As the poet has put it:

"I saw the son of man go by,

Crowned with a crown of thorns.

'Was it not finished Lord,' said I,

'And all the anguish borne?'

"He turned on me His awful eyes;

'Hast Thou not understood?

So every soul is a Calvary

And every sin a rood.'"

...as the moment of consecration arrives, the priest in obedience to the words of our Lord, "Do this for a commemoration of me," takes bread in his hands and says "This is my body"; and then over the chalice of wine says, "This is the chalice of my blood of the new and eternal testament." He does not consecrate the bread and wine together, but separately.

The separate consecration of the bread and wine is a symbolic representation of the separation of body and blood, and since the Crucifixion entailed that very mystery, Calvary is thus renewed on our altar. But Christ, as has been said, is not alone on our altar; we are with Him. Hence the words of consecration have a double sense; the primary signification of the words is: "This is the Body of Christ; this is the Blood of Christ;" but the secondary signification is "This is my body; this is my blood."

I am not surprised by this. The EU nations are bending over backwards to accommodate Muslim culture and sharia law. Meanwhile, Christians are being harassed, marginalized, and murdered. Even the Catholic Church in America is too silent about these atrocities. Why? Because no one really cares...

Beirut Patriarch: EU Doesn't Care About the Fate of Christians in the Middle East," by Jurgen Liminski for Aid to the Church via AINA, via JihadWatch: August 27:

The west's attitude to the Syrian conflict was described as "hypocrisy" and sharply criticised by the Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church in Beirut, Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III. "For many governments it's merely a matter of economic interests. They don't really care about the fate of the Christians in the Middle East. Otherwise they would advocate equality before the law and the observance of human rights for all, including in those countries where the so-called Arab Spring has not taken place", the Beirut Patriarch claims in an interview with the international Catholic charity "Aid to the Church in Need". It's primarily a matter of safeguarding freedom of conscience and religion for all. But this equality before the law does not exist. "It is this that seriously threatens our survival throughout the region", the head of the Syriac Catholic Church stressed.

Below we publish the interview with His Beatitude Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III., Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church in the Middle East and one of the seven Patriarchs in this region.

Interview with His Beatitude Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III., Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church in the Middle East and one of the seven Patriarchs in this region. The Syriac Catholic Church is one of the 18 faith communities in Lebanon recognised in the Lebanese constitution. The interview was conducted by Jürgen Liminski.

Q) Your Beatitude, we hear a lot about the situation of the Christian refugees and the tensions in Lebanon. That's one side of the picture. The other is the political aspect of the Christian presence in Lebanon and in the Middle East. Is this presence at risk?

A) Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III.: "The situation of the Christians in Lebanon differs fundamentally from that of the Christians in the other countries of the Middle East. The constitution recognises 18 official religious communities, eleven of which are Christian. But the main concern everywhere is that of human rights. There's no lack of money and also no lack of vocations. We are being put under pressure by those who wish to recognise only one single religion. We Christians do not demand any special rights; we only want the same rights as everybody else. We want freedom of conscience, we want freedom of religious worship, and we also want freedom for those who don't believe anything. This equality before the law does not exist. It is this that seriously threatens our survival throughout the region."

Q) If only it were merely a matter of legal questions, that would be tolerable. But what is the practical situation?

A) Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III.: "No. The legal questions determine our practical life. They are the framework for human dignity. Our young people don't want to beg for the right to work and live in their own country. In Iraq they ask me: What should we do? Where are we still safe? And it terms of practical living it's like this: When a young man, a Christian, falls in love with a Muslim woman and she loves him, he has to become a Muslim in order to marry her. Where is the freedom of faith there? Another example: We now have a family from Iran here and they want to be baptised. But in doing this they are risking their lives. Where is the freedom of religion there? Islam does not tolerate a change of faith. There is a similar situation in Turkey. There you can see what follows when freedom only exists on paper. The goods of Christians have been confiscated and many churches have been destroyed. But the Christians were in Asia Minor before the Muslims. Rights are also officially recognised in Iraq, but nobody protects them, nobody does anything against the persecution of Christians. And now Syria. Our presence is also under threat there."

Q) Are you on Assad's side?

A) Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III.: "We're on nobody's side. I repeat: We only want the same rights as everybody else. If anything, we're on the side of the Syrian people. But if one doesn't speak out against Assad nowadays it's taken to mean that one's on his side. Do you know who they all are on the other side and whether these forces will recognise civil rights and the Charter of the United Nations?"

Q) Is the European Union wrong in supporting the rebels?

A) Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III.: "Permit me to speak quite frankly. There's a lot of hypocrisy in all this. For many governments it's merely a matter of economic interests. They don't really care about the fate of the Christians in the Middle East. Otherwise they would advocate equality before the law and the observance of human rights for all, including in those countries where the so-called Arab Spring has not taken place. More than a year ago we said that the Arab Spring would result in chaos and civil war. This is not a matter of taking sides for or against Assad or some other potentate in the region. It's a matter of equal rights for all. It's a matter of the primacy of human rights and not the primacy of one religion. Integration and living side-by-side are only possible if this primacy is respected. I said it to the government in Paris and I'll say it to you: Fundamental Islam does not want a dialogue on equal terms in the long run. If the EU were serious about its human rights principles they would openly take up the cause of the future of younger generations in the region. Let's put it like this: there's a lot of economic opportunism around."

Q) Is it any different in the Middle East?

A) Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III.: "No. The refugees who are turning up now are telling us: We trust only the Church. They come mainly from the large towns, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. That's where they are in danger. Most of them want to move on to America, Greece, Australia or Europe. Especially the middle class who still have some reserves. They're looking for countries where they are equal before the law."

Many of my friends are single, as I moved out of the married circles in the past few years after my son left and I started relating more to students and chaste adults, or even celibates of various types.

Now, I want to share with my single young friends a few hints on relationships, which I have learned the hard way and from having good counsellors in my life.

Firstly, love is always in the will. One can decide to marry someone or not. We can choose, and decide to love them. What is called "falling into love" is an interesting but dangerous situation which can cloud the intellect as well as the soul. Real love is in the will.

We fall in love with people who deep down remind us of our mothers and fathers. If our father was a Protector, we shall project that onto a man. Likewise, if our father was a Peter Pan, we shall do the same. As one can see, this is not necessarily a good thing, in the second case. If we have not had a real parent, we keep looking for a parent instead of a mate. This is disastrous.

We all need to know ourselves and have a concept of self-identity. It is only when we know ourselves and can see another person as they truly are that we can love them selflessly.

Otherwise, (and this is the second point), we are like Narcissus staring into the pond, and falling in love with himself; we are only loving ourselves as we project our needs and desires onto someone else. Narcissus loved and became obsessed with himself. Echo fell in love with him, but died and faded away waiting for him to respond to her. Do not do that. Do not wait around and die for a Narcissus.

What Narcissus needed was not a vision of himself in the pool, but a person to mirror himself back to him as he really was. He needed objectivity and truth.

I see young people not pursuing life or relationships because they are afraid. They do not want to see themselves are they really are. They lack the awareness, especially if they are Catholic and baptised, that God dwells in them and that they are loved. The Indwelling of the Trinity changes us. We share in God's Life. We are not alone. We are not god, God is God.

A good partner for life would encourage God in you. He or she would want you to be all you could be in God. A good man will lead you to God and a good woman will lead you to God.

But, one must take chances and choose life. Not to choose is death. Stagnation and staring at one's self is death. When one falls in love, it could be a chance to get out of one's self. One must be wise, and go slowly.

However, that immediate, explosive type of love can be a beginning, if we are open to the other person as that person really is.

The same goes with men. Too often, I have had men fall in love with some idea of a woman instead of me. Thankfully, I can figure this out. A man cannot seek his mother and a woman cannot seek her father, even though that might be part of the initial attraction. They should be seeking an equal mate. That is truly exciting.

We are only loving our baby relationship with our parent in the other case. Part of the problem is that couples isolate themselves too readily. In my youth, all the young people courted within plain view of the community. Everybody's aunt and uncle had opinions on the couple. This is good. Isolation creates distortions. I suggest watching Big Fat Greek Wedding. Except for the stupid fornication bit, the ideas are good and universal. Families should be involved in courting, especially with the young.

To love the other is a great challenge, but it is truly a worthy and heightened experience. When we can separate ourselves from the other and see him or her as they really are, and sacrifice for the good of that person, that is real love. How wonderful it is to die to self and realize that you are really loving someone in God. This brings more life and more love into the relationship.

One must be a real person, with what I call the Core of Being in order to love and accept love. If one is incomplete in one's self, one cannot truly love another without help. Now, marriage is healing and can help in these disadvantages, but only to a point. If the two people involved are willing to see each other as each one really is, what a gift.

Thanks wikimedia commons

Love at first sight is an explosion of our own needs and desires onto a person. When it happens simultaneously, it could mean that two people compliment each other and that a real loving relationship is possible later, with time and contact. Remember that real love waits and trusts. Wait and trust.

I am sorry that I could not get to Vilnius this Autumn. I had an invitation from a friend of mine who described the City of Churches to me. Here are a few of the photos online of this amazing place. St. Casimir is the patron saint of the nation, and a king. His feast day is March 4th, the day my little sister entered heaven at the age of almost one.

Thanks Wiki for this photo

Lithuania was one of the last European countries to be Christianized from paganism,which did not disappear until the 17th century in some places. Lithuania has a fascinating history involving the Teutonic Knights, whose castle and monastery at Marienburg, now in Poland, is seen here. Sigh, there are just not enough hours in the day to see all the wonderful things in the world....

Being a great birdwatcher for over 40 years and memorizing songs and calls of birds in various countries, I have known for some time that certain birds mimic artificial man-made sounds. But, to hear an English Blackbird, which is a Thrush related to the American Robin, chirping away on the hour like an digital alarm clock was uncanny today.

It kept up the sound just like those small, travel alarms with the chirping noise. At first, I thought is was an alarm, and then realized it was the Blackbird outside my London window.

Animals are amazing and birds imitate sounds for various reasons. One is that these animals create territorial rights by singing or calling, and if there are artificial sounds in the area, those can become part of the territory markings.

Some birds are more likely to mimic than others. Like the Blackbird, the Starling is a great bird for mimicry.

Here, there is a CD of mimics which one can buy. I would love to have this, but not now, as I am travelling soon. I shall just pay attention to my surroundings and listen.

Leon Bloy

Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma

The Church Must Not Be Defensive

click here

Too many Church leaders do not think, or do not think as Catholics

click here

GUILD PRAYER

God our Father, source of life and freedom, through Your Holy Spirit you gave the Carmelite, Titus Brandsma the courage to affirm human dignity even in the midst of suffering and degrading persecution.

Grant us that same spirit so that, in refusing all compromise with error we may always and everywhere give coherent witness to Your abiding presence among us.